Little Women
remember that I don’t forget you, and that you’ll be happier in doing
that than writing splendid books or seeing all the world, for love is
the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the
end so easy.”
“I’ll try, Beth.” and then and there Jo renounced her old ambition,
pledged herself to a new and better one, acknowledging the poverty of
other desires, and feeling the blessed solace of a belief in the
immortality of love.
So the spring days came and went, the sky grew clearer, the earth
greener, the flowers were up fairly early, and the birds came back in
time to say goodbye to Beth, who, like a tired but trustful child,
clung to the hands that had led her all her life, as Father and Mother
guided her tenderly through the Valley of the Shadow, and gave her up
to God.
Seldom except in books do the dying utter memorable words, see visions,
or depart with beatified countenances, and those who have sped many
parting souls know that to most the end comes as naturally and simply
as sleep. As Beth had hoped, the ‘tide went out easily’, and in the
dark hour before dawn, on the bosom where she had drawn her first
breath, she quietly drew her last, with no farewell but one loving
look, one little sigh.
With tears and prayers and tender hands, Mother and sisters made her
ready for the long sleep that pain would never mar again, seeing with
grateful eyes the beautiful serenity that soon replaced the pathetic
patience that had wrung their hearts so long, and feeling with reverent
joy that to their darling death was a benignant angel, not a phantom
full of dread.
When morning came, for the first time in many months the fire was out,
Jo’s place was empty, and the room was very still. But a bird sang
blithely on a budding bough, close by, the snowdrops blossomed freshly
at the window, and the spring sunshine streamed in like a benediction
over the placid face upon the pillow, a face so full of painless peace
that those who loved it best smiled through their tears, and thanked
God that Beth was well at last.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
LEARNING TO FORGET
Amy’s lecture did Laurie good, though, of course, he did not own it
till long afterward. Men seldom do, for when women are the advisers,
the lords of creation don’t take the advice till they have persuaded
themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon
it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of
it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole. Laurie went back
to his grandfather, and was so dutifully devoted for several weeks that
the old gentleman declared the climate of Nice had improved him
wonderfully, and he had better try it again. There was nothing the
young gentleman would have liked better, but elephants could not have
dragged him back after the scolding he had received. Pride forbid, and
whenever the longing grew very strong, he fortified his resolution by
repeating the words that had made the deepest impression—“I despise
you.” “Go and do something splendid that will make her love you.”
Laurie turned the matter over in his mind so often that he soon brought
himself to confess that he had been selfish and lazy, but then when a
man has a great sorrow, he should be indulged in all sorts of vagaries
till he has lived it down. He felt that his blighted affections were
quite dead now, and though he should never cease to be a faithful
mourner, there was no occasion to wear his weeds ostentatiously. Jo
wouldn’t love him, but he might make her respect and admire him by
doing something which should prove that a girl’s ‘No’ had not spoiled
his life. He had always meant to do something, and Amy’s advice was
quite unnecessary. He had only been waiting till the aforesaid blighted
affections were decently interred. That being done, he felt that he was
ready to ‘hide his stricken heart, and still toil on’.
As Goethe, when he had a joy or a grief, put it into a song, so Laurie
resolved to embalm his love sorrow in music, and to compose a Requiem
which should harrow up Jo’s soul and melt the heart of every hearer.
Therefore the next time the old gentleman found him getting restless
and moody and ordered him off, he went to Vienna, where he had musical
friends, and fell to work with the firm determination to distinguish
himself. But whether the sorrow was too vast to be embodied in music,
or music too ethereal to uplift a mortal woe, he soon discovered that
the Requiem was beyond him just at present. It was evident that his
mind was not in working order yet, and his ideas needed clarifying, for
often in the middle of a plaintive strain, he would find himself
humming a dancing tune that vividly recalled the Christmas ball at
Nice, especially the stout Frenchman, and put an effectual stop to
tragic composition for the time being.
Then he tried an opera, for nothing seemed impossible in the beginning,
but here again unforeseen difficulties beset him. He wanted Jo for his
heroine, and called upon his memory to supply him with tender
recollections and romantic visions of his love. But memory turned
traitor, and as if possessed by the perverse spirit of the girl, would
only recall Jo’s oddities, faults, and freaks, would only show her in
the most unsentimental aspects—beating mats with her head tied up in a
bandanna, barricading herself with the sofa pillow, or throwing cold
water over his passion a la Gummidge—and an irresistable laugh spoiled
the pensive picture he was endeavoring to paint. Jo wouldn’t be put
into the opera at any price, and he had to give her up with a “Bless
that girl, what a torment she is!” and a clutch at his hair, as became
a distracted composer.
When he looked about him for another and a less intractable damsel to
immortalize in melody, memory produced one with the most obliging
readiness. This phantom wore many faces, but it always had golden hair,
was enveloped in a diaphanous cloud, and floated airily before his
mind’s eye in a pleasing chaos of roses, peacocks, white ponies, and
blue ribbons. He did not give the complacent wraith any name, but he
took her for his heroine and grew quite fond of her, as well he might,
for he gifted her with every gift and grace under the sun, and escorted
her, unscathed, through trials which would have annihilated any mortal
woman.
Thanks to this inspiration, he got on swimmingly for a time, but
gradually the work lost its charm, and he forgot to compose, while he
sat musing, pen in hand, or roamed about the gay city to get some new
ideas and refresh his mind, which seemed to be in a somewhat unsettled
state that winter. He did not do much, but he thought a great deal and
was conscious of a change of some sort going on in spite of himself.
“It’s genius simmering, perhaps. I’ll let it simmer, and see what comes
of it,” he said, with a secret suspicion all the while that it wasn’t
genius, but something far more common. Whatever it was, it simmered to
some purpose, for he grew more and more discontented with his desultory
life, began to long for some real and earnest work to go at, soul and
body, and finally came to the wise conclusion that everyone who loved
music was not a composer. Returning from one of Mozart’s grand operas,
splendidly performed at the Royal Theatre, he looked over his own,
played a few of the best parts, sat staring at the busts of
Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Bach, who stared benignly back again. Then
suddenly he tore up his music sheets, one by one, and as the last
fluttered out of his hand, he said soberly to himself...
“She is right! Talent isn’t genius, and you can’t make it so. That
music has taken the vanity out of me as Rome took it out of her, and I
won’t be a humbug any longer. Now what shall I do?”
That seemed a hard question to answer, and Laurie began to wish he had
to work for his daily bread. Now if ever, occurred an eligible
opportunity for ‘going to the devil’, as he once forcibly expressed it,
for he had plenty of money and nothing to do, and Satan is proverbially
fond of providing employment for full and idle hands. The poor fellow
had temptations enough from without and from within, but he withstood
them pretty well, for much as he valued liberty, he valued good faith
and confidence more, so his promise to his grandfather, and his desire
to be able to look honestly into the eyes of the women who loved him,
and say “All’s well,” kept him safe and steady.
Very likely some Mrs. Grundy will observe, “I don’t believe it, boys
will be boys, young men must sow their wild oats, and women must not
expect miracles.” I dare say you don’t, Mrs. Grundy, but it’s true
nevertheless. Women work a good many miracles, and I have a persuasion
that they may perform even that of raising the standard of manhood by
refusing to echo such sayings. Let the boys be boys, the longer the
better, and let the young men sow their wild oats if they must. But
mothers, sisters, and friends may help to make the crop a small one,
and keep many tares from spoiling the harvest, by believing, and
showing that they believe, in the possibility of loyalty to the virtues
which make men manliest in good women’s eyes. If it is a feminine
delusion, leave us to enjoy it while we may, for without it half the
beauty and the romance of life is lost, and sorrowful forebodings would
embitter all our hopes of the brave, tenderhearted little lads, who
still love their mothers better than themselves and are not ashamed to
own it.
Laurie thought that the task of forgetting his love for Jo would absorb
all his powers for years, but to his great surprise he discovered it
grew easier every day. He refused to believe it at first, got angry
with himself, and couldn’t understand it, but these hearts of ours are
curious and contrary things, and time and nature work their will in
spite of us. Laurie’s heart wouldn’t ache. The wound persisted in
healing with a rapidity that astonished him, and instead of trying to
forget, he found himself trying to remember. He had not foreseen this
turn of affairs, and was not prepared for it. He was disgusted with
himself, surprised at his own fickleness, and full of a queer mixture
of disappointment and relief that he could recover from such a
tremendous blow so soon. He carefully stirred up the embers of his lost
love, but they refused to burst into a blaze. There was only a
comfortable glow that warmed and did him good without putting him into
a fever, and he was reluctantly obliged to confess that the boyish
passion was slowly subsiding into a more tranquil sentiment, very
tender, a little sad and resentful still, but that was sure to pass
away in time, leaving a brotherly affection which would last unbroken
to the end.
As the word ‘brotherly’ passed through his mind in one of his reveries,
he smiled, and glanced up at the picture of Mozart that was before
him...
“Well, he was a great man, and when he couldn’t have one sister he took
the other, and was happy.”
Laurie did not utter the words, but he thought them, and the next
instant kissed the little old ring, saying to himself, “No, I won’t! I
haven’t forgotten, I never can. I’ll try again, and if that fails, why
then...”
Leaving his sentence unfinished, he seized pen and paper and wrote to
Jo, telling her that he could not settle to anything while there was
the least hope of her changing her mind. Couldn’t she, wouldn’t she—and
let him come home and be happy? While waiting for an answer he did
nothing, but he did it energetically, for he was in a fever of
impatience. It came at last, and settled his mind effectually on one
point, for Jo decidedly couldn’t and wouldn’t. She was wrapped up in
Beth, and never wished to hear the word love again. Then she begged him
to be happy with somebody else, but always keep a little corner of his